Black Shoe Diaries, in pictures, for now

Posted on September 21, 2012 by m1ek

Do I really have to tell you to click the images to embiggen them? I hope not.

This is how people thought BSD was a while back

When I and aurabass were both involved in the site – people assumed we were the opposite poles of the spectrum. This is sort of what that looked like.

But wait. What happens when you zoom out a bit?

Knowledgeable football fans – people who read all or most of the Freeh report, for instance.

Once you zoom out, you realize that there’s a whole universe of people who follow football very closely and are smart people who, really, would view M1EK as somewhat nicer to Paterno than the facts would warrant. Really nothing is added to the aurabass side of the picture here. In fact, there are a whole passel of Penn State fans who don’t post to BSD who are to the right of M1EK in this graph – hanging out in places like EDSBS.

Is this the end? Nope. Zoom out a little further:

General public

This is how the general public views things now. Notice there’s really nobody in the general public to the other side of aurabass, but the supposedly equally radical M1EK now looks like what he really is – somebody who bled blue and white who was just disappointed as all fuck in both his old hero and his fellow alums.

So, did BSD really even things out by banning the two people in their ‘poles’ – even though M1EK was banned for just getting under the skin of a particular shitheel rather than actually violating any site rules?

Nope

Aurabass was banned and in his place a couple of dudes apparently from PS4RS have picked up his slack. Meanwhile, on the “reasonable Penn State fan” side, nobody is willing to step back into that cesspool after seeing how people are treated who dare defy the Paterno gospel.

More if I garner the energy. Don’t hold your breath.

How’d I do?

Posted on December 5, 2011 by m1ek

The predictions were here.

Stupid Midwesterners Division:

My predictions:

Actual results:

1	kNU	6-2
2	MSU	6-2
3	Iowa	5-3
4	jNW	3-5
5	UM	3-5
6	Minny	0-8

1	MSU	7-1
2	UM	6-2
3	kNU	5-3
4	Iowa	4-4
5	jNW	3-5
6	Minny	2-6

Other than Michigan, the Stupid Midwesterners Division panned out within a reasonable range of how I thought it would. Minny seems like wrong but they really did suck this badly. Brady Hoke did a surprisingly good job. I worry he’s going to bring them back to Carr levels fairly quickly.

Now for the Slightly Less Stupid Eastern Division:

My predictions:

Actual results:

1	Wisc	8-0
2	tPSU	6-2
3	Zookers	5-3
4	tOSU	4-4
5	Indy	1-7
6	Purdue	1-7

1A	Wiscy	6-2
1B	tPSU	6-2
3	Purdue	4-4
4	tOSU	3-5
5	Zookers	2-6
6	Indy	0-8

(Note that for some stupid reason I ordered by in-division record, which was dumb and not correct; I have fixed it here).

Not so good here. Note: Don’t say Penn State tied for first. Wisconsin beat us head-to-head. They are 1A, we’re 1B. Purdue seemed like they sucked when I watched them but they somehow exceeded expectations by a lot, while Greater Evil got deservedly pantsed. Also, Ron Zook? Why can’t I quit you?

Also, as usual, I underestimate chaos and tend to assume good teams always beat bad teams. Note to self – throw in 50% more chaos next time.

On False Narratives (Regarding Bannings)

Posted on November 14, 2011 by m1ek

This comment by user “OctaShields” resulted in a temporary ban that was protested vigorously for days by people who insisted that the old moderator would NEVER have banned somebody for directly attacking him:

NOTE “throbbing boner” and other such attacks.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST:

THIS comment was made from an unidentified induhdividual to that same old moderator referenced above (the one who would never ban anybody for attacking him or disagreeing with him) after a particularly distasteful personal attack was made (TO the commenter, not by him) a couple of comments upstream (follow the link above and use the scrollbar to see it):

NOTE: The “H” word is “homer”.

And THIS is what that commenter got immediately afterwards, and for every visit since (years, now):

So, #teambanned, I can expect you to stop the false narrative that the old guy was a kindly overseer who didn’t care when people attacked him, right? Or that he had tolerance for dissenting points of view?

Note that over the couple of years following, several other posters were banned, and numerous others left of their own accord in response to a perception of groupthink and a general lack of support for dissent among the “community”. At the time this image above was first generated, the “community” was fairly new and it was fairly truthful for the old moderator to make the claim that he had only banned one other person; but by the time the site changed hands, that was no longer the case.

Penn State: Burn Everything Down: Item The Second

Posted on November 14, 2011 by m1ek

Following up to Item The First

Since M1EK is still banned from Homer Central for being substantially less of a jerk to the previous moderator than #teambanned was to the current moderator, this, in addition to Item The FIrst, shall serve as my response to about eleventy-billion comments of the form:

“Paterno DID report it to the police! Gary Schultz! What else was he supposed to do? Go vigilante?”

Dear fools:

Gary Schultz had financial oversight of the campus police department. He was an executive in the organization that had every incentive to cover up the crime rather than investigate it. He is NOT A COP. He does NOT WEAR A BADGE.

The media that you keep attacking for “not knowing the facts” does in fact know the fact that Schultz had financial oversight of the university police.

A fairly representative sample from NPR:

As the senior vice president for finance and business — which gives him oversight of university police — Schultz, 62, has been charged with covering up abuse allegations.

Note the word “oversight”. They do not say he is a cop. They know he is not a cop, as should you.

The national media, seeing as how they have brains that aren’t clouded by blind loyalty, have concluded, as have many of those like me, that he DOES NOT COUNT AS “THE COPS” for the reason that he, again, does not wear a badge; does not work in law enforcement; and had natural incentives to cover up the crime rather than investigate it.

And Paterno knew that. So if he only went to Schultz (and Curley), as it appears he did (stay tuned for future post blasting a hole in the “bbbbut we don’t know what else he did!” claim), he did the bare minimum required by law, but he did NOT “go to the cops” in the way most people would understand it.

And again, note from Item The First that these are just the university police. Most folks in the national media would not consider them under the umbrella “the cops”, but even if they did, you lose on Schultz not being a university “cop”.

So, homers?

Shut up. Again, just shut up. You’re making it worse every time you open your mouths.

Penn State: Burn Everything Down: Item The First

Posted on November 7, 2011 by m1ek

I don’t know how much stomach I’ll have to write on this, because Joe Paterno was pretty much my #1 hero growing up, so I need to get this out quickly.

In regards to the legion of apologists for Paterno infesting Homer Central; I say this, short and to the point:

STOP SAYING THAT PATERNO “DID GO TO THE COPS” BECAUSE HE REPORTED THE INCIDENT TO CURLEY AND SCHULTZ. YES, WE ARE AWARE SCHULTZ WAS IN CHARGE OF THE UNIVERSITY POLICE. NO, THAT IS NOT WHAT WE MEAN BY “THE COPS”.

University Police are a small step up from mall cops. There are some real cops in downtown State College. THOSE ARE “THE COPS”.

Shut up, apologists. I command you to shut up.

Sincerely,

M1EK

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Posted on September 20, 2011 by m1ek

Dear sports “communities”: I really don’t have time for this. Really. But you’ve ground my gears so much I have to take three seconds away from curing cancer at my real jorb to do this for the sake of the entire internet.

I'm like a fatter, better looking, Peter Griffin.

My gears have no teeth at this point, you would presume. BUT YOU'RE WRONG!

Trolling means something.

It does not mean “an argument I don’t like”. It does not mean “an argument I think is stupid”. It does not even mean “an argument that really makes me mad because they keep making it at me”. Which is how some people are using it these days.

Charlie Sheen fits in at BSD

It means “somebody is yanking your chain on purpose, and, and this is the most important part: usually doesn’t even believe what they are saying“. The easiest way to tell if it’s a troll is if they are saying something they know is not actually true. Not a matter of opinion; not “I disagree”; but counting two things and coming up with three. Or insisting that the moon landing happened in 1968. It has a long and storied history, originally on USENET, when we called it “fishing”. How do I know this? BECAUSE I DID IT A LOT, JACKWAGONS.

Here’s a really good example (found it in like 3 seconds). I had a Michigan fan going in circles calling me stupid for not being able to count, and mispelling the name of Albert Einstien, while everybody who knew what was going on was giggling behind their own computers in their mom’s basement. (No, YOUR mom’s basement!). In threads like these, I would say “anybody can fake a web page” when refuted with something they dragged up, make my own fake web page, post it in response, and then answer “it’s impossible to fake web pages” when they’d call foul, and they’d never realize they had a hook in their mouth. Or say I had 3 reasons they were wrong, post two (numbered 1 and 2, or even better, 1 and B), then when they called me stupid for not counting correctly, I’d insist I had no idea what they were talking about, and edit the quoted material accordingly. Then, when accused of changing the post, I’d tell them they were clearly idots – because you can’t change something that’s already been posted for these 3 reasons: 1, B. Lather, rinse, repeat, catch, release.

Another good example (difficult to find proto-thread in google groups given that searches prior to 2000 appear to be only intermittently working anymore) is when I made some Nebraska fans furious by insisting that they tied Kansas that one year (1994) when they actually lost to them. I also at a slightly later point had them convinced I was a Nebraska fan by the clever fiction of signing my posts “Husker M1EK” while changing absolutely nothing else.

So that’s fishing, or trolling as you n00bs like to call it now.

Again: things that are NOT trolling: “Somebody said something that I don’t like!”, or “Somebody keeps pissing me off”, or even “Somebody keeps pissing everyone off”. If they believe what they’re saying, it’s not trolling, not really.

Doo Doo De Doooo!

Penn State football starts in eight days!

Posted on September 2, 2011 by m1ek

Well, there’s some kind of exhibition game going on tomorrow against Indiana State, but we all know that can’t be a real game that counts, right? Because it wouldn’t be fair; wouldn’t be “success with honor” to beat up on a team from a conference whose stadiums average around 16,000 seats and from a league which offer substantially lower athletic scholarships than our league does…

Division I FCS schools are currently restricted to giving financial assistance amounting to 63 full scholarships. Unlike Bowl Subdivision schools, Championship Subdivision schools may divide their allotment into partial scholarships, but Championship Subdivision schools are limited to 85 players receiving any sort of athletic financial aid for football. Because of competitive forces, however, a substantial number of players in Championship Subdivision programs are on full scholarships.

According to the fine folks at BSD, there’s nothing wrong with doing the football equivalent of having the Texas Rangers not only play a game against the Round Rock Express but have it count in the standings for both teams. After all, both teams play the same game by the same rules, right? Balls and strikes and whatnot?

Huh. Doesn’t seem right to me. But I’m assured by the homers at BSD that it still doesn’t matter because everybody does. So I’m sure that if I look at the top-flight programs in the BCS conferences, I won’t find anybody who didn’t schedule a 1-AA team. Let’s start!

Team	1-AA games
Ohio State	None
Michigan	None
Nebraska	Chatanooga
Florida State	Charleston Southern
Miami	Bethune-Cookman
Virginia Tech	Appalachian State
Pitt	Maine
Oklahoma	None
Texas	None
Texas A&M	None
Noter Dame	None
Oregon	Missouri State
UCLA	None
USC	None
Alabama	Georgia Southern
Auburn	Samford
Florida	Furman
Georgia	Coastal Carolina
LSU	Northwestern State

It goes on like that. Point is that the biggest SEC teams and ACC teams seem to schedule a 1-AA team every single season; and most top-flight programs from other conferences did not. (Of course they schedule one once in a while – Hi Michigan!; but not every single season like Penn State has done lately). An interesting aside: Most of the teams on that list with 9-game conference schedules actually didn’t schedule a 1-AA game.

So, homers, I breathlessly await your apology. Everybody doesn’t do it. And after that, I guess you need to decide who you want to be more like: Michigan, Notre Dame, USC, UCLA; or Florida, Georgia, Auburn, Alabama, Pitt? Just let me know, K?

Will the BSD commentariat get the point?

Open Letter to BSD

Posted on August 24, 2011 by m1ek

On the urging of BSD Mike, who is currently by fiat significantly less of a jerk than Jerky McJerkyJerk, I want to offer my sincere reconciliatory apology to anybody at that site whose feelings were hurt by being grouped into a grouping they disagreed with. I myself find great emotional torment in being described as a “hater”, and I have been assured by significantly non-jerky persons that this may be the result of grouping certain thinkers into a group they do not think they should have been part of, despite this being technically a temporal paradox as I think the grouping happened AFTER the haterlabelerating.

The currently de-jerked former jerky former moderator will love this, politically

Re-enactment

Since this point, every so often, M1EK’s name will be invoked with disgust in various quarters as a hater. Hate hate hate hate. Those who know me know this not to be true, but I hate being called a hater. No, this is not how I feel:

This is definitely not me

So obviously given my own state of Hurt Feelings, I’m sorry if your feelings were hurt too. Let’s go back to the posting that immediately preceded my ban from BSD. This comment, which I received from somebody I don’t know from Adam:

Question…

did you move out of PA on your own, or were you chased-out by your “neighbors” with pitch-forks/shovels & scythes…because they want to keep Happy Valley – happy (just like all others want to keep this fine BSD Blogisphere)

…get it now?

Go “enable” yourself on a longhorn…

Old School… MEETS New School!

by BlueWhiteLife on Aug 29, 2008 7:30 AM PDT up actions

is doubtlessly still in the queue for “moderator had best respond PUBLICALLY and make clear this behavior will not be tolerated”. The fact that the current new current moderator of BSD has not rectified this injustice makes me want to send him back to the Jerk Shop for more Jerkiness. Jerk.

But let’s be clear: that attack, made directly on my person, was clearly deserved. The comment to which it referenced is here:

Beating up on the weak sisters

isn’t what Penn State football is about. Not in my opinion, anyways. You can go ahead and be proud of a game you’d be making fun of if UM or OSU scheduled them – but I’m not going to enable this despicable behavior.

I wasn’t about to take your parking space anyways. The drive from Texas is a bit too much to pull off.

by M1EK on Aug 29, 2008 6:56 AM PDT up actions

This horrible comment above wasn’t actually MADE to that user, nor, really, to any user directly, but clearly it merited that vicious personal attack in response. Oh dear sweet baby Jebus watching your Baby Einstien tapes, it makes me shudder to think of how mean I was even today. And, so, for that, I’m sorry. So very sorry.

Artists' Depiction

I’m sorry for referring to your site as infested by groupthink. It is no excuse that I was banned for attempting to defend myself in language which was 25% as vigorous as that with which I was attacked. It is no excuse that the moderator did not step in and moderate; i.e., indicate that attacks against those with unpopular opinions were just as bad as attacks FROM those with unpopular opinions. My course of action at the time should have been to grin and take it.

I’m so very sorry. Sorry.

So Very Sorry

I’ve been assured by the old less jerky previous jerk that if I were to seek reconciliation from commenters like the above, that I’d receive it. Obviously I think several years of cultural cement won’t be undone quite that easily, given the obvious evidence above that has been ignored for years. Hence the tone of this article, which you may have noticed is slightly unserious. But here’s hoping! With that in mind, let me reiterate these key points, some of which I’ve said on other forums (not just the easily defensible home court you guys like to hide out on):

Go read my “About” page. Seriously. Do it. Come on, do it.
Joe Paterno runs the cleanest program in college football. Period. When people at Ohio State claimed “everybody does it”, I helped them understand that, NO, THEY DON’T, and there’s somebody on their eastern border who might be able to help them learn how not to DO IT any more either. Well, if by “helped them understand” you mean “beat it into their skulls for the benefit of the 100 readers who lurk”, because as we know, no commenters’ minds ever get changed by participating in comments, but readers’ sometimes can.
It is NOT an accident that Penn State has never received a major violation. It is NOT an accident that two schools of the relative few that try the absolute hardest to play by the rules haven’t been caught violating the rules. It’s not that there’s no major media presence in State College or that no cub/club reporter could make their career bringing down the big catch. It’s because we try harder.
Joe is a crafty mofo when he is in full possession of his faculties. I hope he’s back. He seems somewhat better.
I root for us in EVERY DAMN GAME despite sometimes being a smart-ass about rooting against us when we play Indiana State. Before big games I have been known to pull the (significantly broken) old trumpet out of the garage and play the fight song for good luck. In Austin, Texas.
My prediction for this year is very difficult to make. I can see us going anywhere from 7-5 to 11-1 (flier at 12-0). The last time I went out on a limb and made a prediction, it was 8-4 for Clark’s big year. Was wrong then. Was right the previous year with 8-4 for Morelli.
I was firmly on Team Devlin in the sense that he should have been given the starting job for Iowa that year, and that game alone. Clark was clearly sub-par (clearly); and if you don’t play your 1(b) guy when the 1(a) guy got knocked out with a concussion and clearly isn’t back yet, the right decision is clearly to transfer.
I am firmly on Team Bolden. I firmly believe he showed better skills AND better potential playing against those damn good defenses the first few games of the season when the running game thought it was better to place all of the burden on a true freshman quarterback. I clearly thought he was right to seek a transfer after the bowl game, which was a complete disaster that should have scared away many potential quarterback recruits. I am surprised it apparently didn’t.
Be a fan. Drink Kool-Aid! But understand that people who don’t drink Kool-Aid don’t just hate; they may just have a more discriminating palate.
I continue to read BSD, especially now that you’re virtually the only game in town. Feel free to blow me: some kisses.
I’m actually sorry if any of your feelings were ACTUALLY hurt, or undeservedly so.

Sincerely,

The Bigger Man

Artist Depiction of M1EK

M1EK’S BIG [sic] TEN [sic] Picks

Posted on July 28, 2011 by m1ek

This is what I look like in black and white

Anybody miss the old 3Sickem?

I am on a TEN HOUR CONFERENCE CALL. By ten, I mean 12, of course. Zing!

Since the homer brigade didn’t let me know, this is late. And they’ll ignore it, because they smell like feet. But still! Here! It! Is!

Unlike them, I will break my picks up by division. Because they’re stupid, and I’m not.

M1EK’S BIG TEN PICKS FOR 2011!

Stupid Midwesterners Division

kNU (5-0 in division, 6-2 in conference, losses @Cheese and @Good)
Lesser Evil’s Little Brudder (LELB) (4-1 in division, 6-2 in conference, losses @Cheese and @kNU)
AchillesHeel (3-2 in division, 5-3 in conference, losses @Good – FINALLY, vs. LELB, @kNU)
jNW (2-3 in division, 3-5 in conference, wins versus Boring, LesserEvil, WINFIGHTWIN)
LesserEvil (1-4 in division, 3-5 in conference; wins versus WINFIGHTWIN, DIABEETUS, GreaterEvil)
WINFIGHTWIN (0-5 in division, 0-8 in conference)

SLIGHTLY LESS STUPID EASTERN DIVISION

Cheese (5-0 in division, 8-0 in conference)
GreaterEvil (4-1 in division, 4-4 in conference, losses to LesserEvil, LELB, kNU, and @Cheese)
Good (3-2 in division, 6-2 in conference, losses @GreaterEvil and vs. Cheese)
Fightin’ Zookers (2-3 in division, 5-3 in conference, losses to GreaterEvil, @Good, and vs. Cheese)
Boring, or, At Least We’re Not Purdue (1-4 in division, 1-7 in conference; wins vs. Purdue)
DIABEETUS, or, At Least We’re Not Minnesota (0-5 in division, 1-7 in conference, win vs. WINFIGHTWIN)

ANY QUESTIONS?

Homers Still Think All Non Homers Are Haters

Posted on July 21, 2011 by m1ek

No, you insufferable jackass Reading Rambler:

It wasn’t me; I actually love Penn State too much to be an unquestioning blind sheep about it. It’s you homers who secretly hate the institution.

As for the actual list of douchiest colleges, I found it pretty funny – and I liked many of the things they found douchey – and still look back on those things with fondness. I had a tailgate band whose sole purpose was to get us free beers after the game (note: this was not even allowed back then – if in uniform, which of course we were, – and I’m pretty sure Dr. Bundy would kill you today if he found out). I and some folks in the dorm watched Strange Brew so many times that we had a beer and donuts breakfast one morning that resulted in my Spanish teacher commending me on my excellent participation after the 10:10 class finished. (Note: Do not have beer and donuts for breakfast. It only takes one beer at this time of the morning, and the donuts will not do you good!)

Hooker Joe Paterno would have been hilarious, too.

But back to the general point the homer was trying to make: Mistaking constructive criticism for hate, that’s a ~~paddlin’~~ noodlin’.

I had to reuse this as I just made it for a work thread and it was SO MUCH WORK to only use once!

This is exactly what I look like right now.

M1EK's SUPER SPORTS CHAT

Mostly sports. Mostly Penn State. Mostly bile.